Hidden Allies Defined – And How They Can Help You Win Deals

What if I told you there was a secret set of people who would help you break into and expand the biggest accounts in your book?

That sounds like science fiction. Except, they’re out there, no matter where you work.

We call them hidden allies. And research shows top performers are already identifying them at scale and working with them to close deals.

What hidden allies are: The “diamonds in the rough” of the sales world.

A hidden ally is someone you don’t yet know. But, they have some connection to you or your solution, making them much more likely to take a call with you or champion your latest proposal.

Put another way – hidden allies are the "diamonds in the rough" of the sales world. They lead to referrals, and referrals are diamonds in terms of closing deals, as Adobe found that buyers are nearly 4x more likely to purchase when referred through a warm introduction.

Even if you have an existing deal with the account, hidden allies are people who can make for great internal champions. They can help you retain and grow any deal.

What are some examples of hidden allies? Here are a few of the most common:

• People who used your solution at a previous organization.
• People who previously worked at your company. 
• People who know people that you know.
• People who attended your same school.

Of course, not everyone in these categories will necessarily be a great champion for you. But, they are far more likely to already know the value of your solution and/or be more open to having a conversation with you.

And that significantly increases your chance of turning them into a great ally.

How sellers today are working with hidden allies to close deals.

This sounds good on paper. But how are sellers today working with hidden allies to close deals?

Here are a few examples:

-Past customers make for great paths in.

Former Gong Account Executive Sarah Brazier has one hidden ally she’ll always target – past customers.

Meaning, if someone used Gong at a company, and then switched over to another company that didn’t have Gong, they’d be someone she’d target. Why?

“They already understand the value of the product and, often, they are already a champion of Gong,” Brazier said. “It’s a great way in."

LinkedIn Relationship Manager Nicole Singer agrees.

“My favorite type of hidden allies are past customers who now work at different companies in my book of business,” said Zucker. “These individuals have already purchased my product in previous roles, understand the value, and as a result, can be a champion at their new organization.”

-Mutual connections can provide deep sales intelligence.

HubSpot SVP Kimberly Dieter wants to show up great to every sales call. To do that, she does deep research to really understand the customer.

While there’s a lot she can grab online, the best-case scenario is when she can talk to someone she knows who already knows the person she’s meeting with, i.e. a mutual connection.

Specifically, she’ll use Teamlink to see if anyone in her organization knows the person she’s meeting with. If there’s a match, she’ll reach out to learn more about the other person.

“I can't tell you the number of times it's allowed me to navigate a relationship with the customer faster because I was able to look at our mutual connection, reach out to that connection prior and say, ‘Hey, do you know ‘so and so’ – I'm meeting with them next week’,” Dieter said. “‘What can you tell me about them? What can you tell me about their decision making? What can you tell me about the company, the culture, the brand, the experience? Tell me everything that you know’.” 

“It always allows me to move faster in building that trust and relationship with the customer,” she continued.

LinkedIn Relationship Manager Emma Johnston uses this same process for multithreading.

“Knowing where I can get warm introductions through my teammates and leaders at LinkedIn is a game-changer for me,” Johnston said. “I am always mindful of who I am reaching out to, along with the messaging. So having this insight before ever reaching out helps me craft relevant messaging, which increases my response rates!”

-Past colleagues can help you win deals (even if you’ve lost them).

LinkedIn Enterprise Sales Leader Douglas Cole loves looking for “alumni connections” as potential hidden allies. And not just people who went to his same college, but also people who previously worked at the company he now works for.

“I find alumni paths are most reliable in getting people to respond to you and help with your sales process,” Cole said.

He gave a recent example. One of his accounts at LinkedIn churned. To win it back, he contacted someone at the account who used to work at LinkedIn.

“He got me in touch with someone else, and that person gave me a very detailed overview of the entire buying committee,” Cole said. “That allowed us to get back in and re-sell the program.”

Zoe Neuschatz, an Account Lead at LinkedIn, agrees.

“Former colleagues that are now at my customer’s companies are some of the all-time best coaches and champions — they understand my business and they understand my customer’s business,” Neuschatz said. “They can help me navigate the customer’s organization and understand where I can provide the most value to their business.”

How Sales Navigator can turn hidden allies into just allies.

You see the value of hidden allies. How do you discover them at scale?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator serves this need in a few different ways. They include:

• Through lead search. Use lead filters like “Past customer”, “TeamLink connections”, “Shared experiences”, and more to identify hidden allies when searching through potential leads, to find the ones most likely to respond to you. Read more here. Read more here.
• Through Relationship Explorer. For any account you have, simply go to Relationship Explorer to find hidden allies to reach out to. Read more here.
• Team Link. With it, every rep on the team gets the full value of every person at your company’s network, by showing who knows who within your org. Read more here.

The takeaway: Hidden allies are so valuable. Don’t leave finding them to chance.

Virtually every salesperson I’ve met has lauded the power of referrals. In fact, I’ve talked to some who only work with referrals, as it’s the cleanest, best way into accounts.

Hidden allies can serve as de facto referrals. They can offer a similarly smooth path into any account, or can provide outsized value when retaining or expanding said account.

A mistake would be leaving it up to chance of “lucking your way” into these hidden allies. Instead, the highest-performing sellers and sales teams invest in identifying and pursuing hidden allies, knowing they yield powerful results.

See the data-backed habits that nearly double your team's chances of exceeding quota in ‘Deep Sales: The B2B Sales Playbook to Boost Revenue in 2024’.